_tacocat_

I think she said that the email with the access code had the clarified terms, but the initial survey invite emails said off of your next voyage - that's where it seems deceptive!

yep, they pulled this garbage last year when they sent the first "big" survey like this out. at that point, we had at least FOUR upcoming voyages already booked, so it wasn't like we could just up and book another one to take advantage of this whopping $200 credit. i was able to get hold of a manager in sailor services, and they ultimately caved and added it to 2 of our upcoming voyages (one credit for each of the 2 voyages because we'd both taken the survey).

I think you should only potentially run into tax in port (and that’s if they actually charge.. in Bimini this week, half our drinks had tax added and half didn’t 🤷‍♀️ ). You’re going between countries, so it’s not like the med voyages that stay in the Schengen area and therefore have to charge vat on everything.

The “waitlist” is basically someone at the shore things desk with a notebook that may or may not book you if something opens up. You’re better off checking in the app and jumping on it in there if you see it. if they have a huge waitlist, they’ll try to see if the can get another boat/bus/whatever to accommodate the lots of extra people, but they can’t do that at a port stop where there are 4 other ships in port- they’re limited by the physical capacity of the tour operators.

I just got off scarlet, and I was told we had ~2,300 onboard. It didn’t feel crowded, with the exception of late afternoon on our sea day at the pool. Not sure where all the people were!

They still seem to have stuff they’re trying to offload from their original merch line. I just got off scarlet, and they had a TON of the shirts in various bright colors that said “ahoy” and had sailors or parrots whatever on them for $15

I ran into this last time they did these big surveys. I had 2 upcoming voyages, and both my husband and I did the surveys. We got access keys for new bookings. We ultimately fought with sailor services to get $200 loot on each of those voyages (1 per survey between the 2 of us) because we clearly had very different definitions of “your next voyage.” Good luck!

i found that the programming did significantly increase or decrease based on passenger count. i was on the 8 night eastern caribbean in december with over 2,300 onboard. there were so many things to do - many showings of each show, a few paint & sips, lots of trivia events, even things to do during the day on port days. i sailed that same itinerary in late january with ~800 onboard, and it was the first time in many voyages that i had been legitimately bored. there were a couple nights where there was literally nothing going on nightlife wise (there was even a crew party in the manor one night!), and there were absolutely no events on port days. we usually treat puerto plata as a sea day, so we were bummed that there were no organized activities onboard this time like there had been a month earlier. as others said, there were some events that had more crew than passengers - basically any of the music events at on the rocks or the cabaret with the hostess events. certainly a weird vibe and the ship felt like a ghost town. neither here nor there, but even on this very light sailing, passengers would still come up to the pool deck at the crack of dawn to "reserve" prime loungers by the pool and not show up until the afternoon grrrr. give me 2,300+ pax over an empty ship any day - it's so much more fun when the ship is lively! i'd say the sweet spot for not feeling crowded at all but also not being a ghost town is probably around 1,500-1,800.

We had a ridiculous experience in the galley a couple voyages ago, where they wouldn’t let you order a salad from the salad bar, you had to sit down and dictate your custom build-a-salad toppings to a server who would frantically try to write them all down. The rationale? They had too many guests onboard (only 1,800?), and having a traditional salad bar setup would make it too slow. Guess what, trying to interpret hastily scribbled ingredients does nothing to speed up a service line… Filled out a survey and spoke to a manager in the galley that afternoon, but a F&B manager found me in pink agave that night to say that yes it was ridiculous and to see if I needed anything else. Happy to hear that they very quickly stopped doing that! They seem to be super responsive onboard *if* people actually provide feedback in real time. Some people just come home and complain about this or that but never actually tell anyone onboard who can help correct course!

sounds like you were booking a sea view then? there are very few sea view terraces above 5 - i think it's like 2 or 4 per deck at the front, and they're all at the extreme forward end of each deck. sea terraces are much more plentiful and available on decks 8-14

you're in for a treat! free label was the "house band" on my first VV in 2021, and they've been brought back to various ships every now and then as guest entertainers. they're a funk band from canada!

Opening a dispute may delay the refund further- you’ll get a provisional credit on your statement, but it can take much longer to get it closed out. This happens with canceled show tickets, order screwups or whatever too. If they’re in the process of refunding you, that will pause and you may get pushed to the back of a new queue while they process straight refunds.

it's best to make a reservation for these - they do fill up. they recently started allowing folks to book breakfast/brunch/lunch at razzle dazzle and the wake ahead of time. you used to have to wait until you got onboard to do that.

i think the fee was $25, which i felt was kind of ridiculous, seeing as we could literally open the bottle anywhere else on the ship, pour some in a proper wine glass and not have this charge. for context, i live in LA, where most corkage fees start at $35 and go to $75+, so it's not that it's a culture shock for me to pay a corkage, it's just the principle of the matter here.

Any time i've gotten one, it felt like it wasn't technically a "topper." i believe they just fold up an extra duvet and shove it under the sheets. There's also the fact that shoreside sailor services has no clue what they're talking about more frequently than should happen at this point...

there's only a corkage fee if you bring the bottle to a restaurant with you, and even then it's hit or miss on if you get charged. anecdotally, i was NOT charged as a rockstar at the wake once (but we had an interesting bottle and i think maybe distracted the somm and server haha), but i WAS charged when sailing as a rockstar at extra virgin. i can't recall if it came out of bar tab or loot, but i feel like it would have been bar tab. since then, i've always popped by a bar to grab glasses and open the bottle for me and poured myself a (large) glass to bring to dinner. i know some lines charge you corkage as soon as you bring the bottles on, irrespective of where you consume them, which is crazy IMO! VV does not do that 🙂

i'm on this voyage too and i got a random re-confirmation with the same cabin but $1.50 credit... no clue what's up with that.

the shorter cruises tend to attract more of a party vibe - more large groups celebrating birthdays, bachelor/bachelorettes, etc. also the shorter voyages trend younger on average than the longer itineraries, as in general younger people have less PTO and discretionary income than people more established in their careers or retired. i'm 35 and i've been on 4, 5, 7 and 8 nighters, and i've never gotten a real "party" vibe on any of the 7 or 8 nighters. the 4 nighters are as close as VV comes to a "booze cruise" that may be common on other lines.

we actually had two different comedians on back to back sailings on scarlet earlier this year - part of the rotating "festival stage." the one on the first leg was great - mostly self-deprecating millennial humor, but the guy on the second leg was horrendous - it was a painful hour of sex and drug jokes that simultaneously failed to make any mark and crossed the line. i frequent the major and tiny comedy clubs in LA and am familiar with and a fan of all types of comedy from squeaky clean to absolute filth, but jeez, when a guy is just talking about his peen for almost a full hour set... i wanted to walk out, but was trapped up front! it's a fine line in getting "the right" comic to come onboard VV. you don't want a squeaky clean corporate set, but you also don't want to ostracize half your audience with a comic's well-known subject matter.

you'd continue to bet with that promo chip until you lost it. you can take all of your winnings though, as those are awarded in normal non-promo chips

“Tips” are included, in that crew gets paid wages vs. having to rely on autogratuities or discretionary tips like they do on other lines. The cruise fares and onboard services are more expensive than other lines, reflecting that.

i booked a RS cabin onboard once, and it was showing as "GTY" for a little bit. the future voyages crew member said that i'd eventually get a suite, and it would be either the seriously suite that i booked or better. for reference, it was not a lock it in rate - it was a fully paid up front RS reservation my theory is that there were only accessible/ambulatory suites available at that point, and the system didn't want to auto assign us. a few days later while still onboard, we were assigned one of those accessible cabins. i didn't want that cabin because i would feel horrible taking that accessibility from someone who actually needed it, so i kept checking back once i was off the ship. i called in as soon as i saw another one open up and was able to switch to that suite. it was pretty weird/nerve wracking when we were fully paid and booked into that GTY for a few days though!!!

Nope, rockstar area is for rockstar guests, a very select group of other sailors in a not so secret secret club called 485c (can’t buy into that group either), and seemingly people who they royally screw over with bookings (like nuclear screwups, not little oopsies mistakes) and throw rooftop access at them as a service recovery bone.

There’s a little tracker on a small screen on the slot machine. It’ll tell you how much promo $ you have left. You can cash out any of your winnings at any time, and it’ll spit out some money and leave you with the rest of your promotional $ on the machine. Kind of confusing to explain if you haven’t seen it before hah, but just know that you WILL be able to see how much you have in total on the machine, and you can just subtract your remaining promo $ from that to see how much you can cash out!

The VV ships were designed to ultimately run on shore power, but the limiting factor is where shore power is actually available at ports. I went to a panel onboard with a few Virgin execs last year, and they talked about everything they’ve done sustainability-wise. It’s pretty neat how much they’ve innovated things!!